The Secrets of Buying and Selling Domain Names

August 29th, 2010 admin

Buying and selling domain names online has become a very profitable business. With the internet more than doubling its size in the past decade it is easy to see how much money there really is in domain names. Every new web site has a name, or needs a name in order to exist. Domain names are absolutely mandatory for web sites, so there is a massive market that is based on simple supply and demand.

As the internet continues to expand it is very unlikely that the supply will outweigh the demand. In fact, it is almost a statistical impossibility, considering the amount of domain names left and the amount of people that are trying to buy domains. If you’re wondering why this incredibly profitable business opportunity has been kept from you for so long, keep reading to discover some of the secrets of buying and selling domain names.

Finding the Domain Name

The first step in buying and selling domain names is finding the name. You need to find a name that is almost guaranteed to be sold again in the near future. While this may seem like a difficult task, there are endless opportunities created by a sea of individual markets and industries. All you have to do is find a keyword or interesting name that would be valuable to a buyer.

Most domain sellers wont tell you that they use auction sites and certain tools to find out what kind of names are hot at the moment. Simply visit your favorite site auction site and checkout some of the current auctions. Look for the auctions that are currently being bid on the most. If you can emulate that success by picking a similar name then you’ll be able to consistently profit from buying and selling domain names.

You can also use the latest trends to your advantage by purchasing domain names that are relevant to new hot  topics that are being frequently searched for in search engines. To find this information you can use a tool like Google Trends. If the topic is hot and you find a matching domain name then you can be sure that someone will bid on the name and give you more than what you paid for it.

Selling the Domain Name vs. Parking It

Once you have acquired a good domain name you can start making small amounts of money from it right away, or you can sell it for a more hefty and lump sum profit. A lot of people don’t know what domain parking is. When you park a domain for monetary purposes you are actually leasing that domain name to an advertising company that will pay you to place ads on your pages. Obviously there is a potential for an extra revenue stream, however it would take hundreds of parked domains, which could be a hassle to manage.

On the other hand, selling the domain will give you a larger amount of money, sometimes entering into the range of thousands of dollars. There are a variety of ways to sell your domain.

Source: webhostinggeeks.com

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.CO Domains Gaining Support and Momentum

August 29th, 2010 admin

Currently, there are over 280 top-level domains that are available to use as website extensions. Many are specific country codes that are used to denote a specific geographic location with .com names being the most popular. On July 20th, 2010, the new .co names were released to the masses. These are short for company which is why the popularity with ecommerce sites has grown.

Information About .CO Domains

Anyone can register for a .CO extension as long as you can cover the financial costs. Also, these domain names can be transferred in the case of a sale. There are currently only 10 accredited registrars that can distribute these extensions to the public. There are also numerous domain name resellers that are selling them for a profit.

Advantages of .CO

The first advantage is that it is easy to remember. Since there are only two letters, the extension is easily pronounced and can be spread via word of mouth. Google has even jumped on board by officially enabling international targeting which allows the domain name to rank well among search engines.

Another advantage is that the domain names are currently extremely cheap, unique and professional. Over the next few years, these are sure to catch on. In ten years, .com may find that .co has taken over. The extension is short, recognizable and desirable in today’s competitive market that is the internet.

Why .CO?

Although .CO is short for company or corporation, there are no limitations to what they can be used for. This extension was actually created in 1991 but wasn’t considered until 2001 for use commercially. A University in Columbia believed that the .CO extension could become a replacement for the popular .COM and the domain extension has taken off ever since.

Since so many .COM domain names are taken, why not look to picking up a .CO. They are greatly gaining in popularity, especially if Google is involved. Since domain names are sold on a first-come, first-serve basis, the sooner you look into purchasing a .CO, the better chance you have of obtaining a potentially valuable name.

The internet and domain names have come a long way since the original .COM, .ORG and .INFO. The .CO seems to be an internet trend that will never dissipate due to the popularity among webmasters and major corporations. In ten years, .CO could become the most used top-level domain in history.

Source: webhostinggeeks.com

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.Co Domains and Shortened URLS

August 29th, 2010 admin

The new .CO domains are being bought and sold furiously as a formidable market is currently being built around the hottest realty on the internet right now. With the dawn of a new and exciting public domain web site owners and domain speculators everywhere were purchasing 2,3 and 4 letter domain names by the thousands within weeks of their release. Nearly every short .co domain name has been bought by companies that undoubtedly used software to calculate every single short term calculation possible and purchase it automatically. However, this doesn’t mean that all hope is lost for short .com domains, as is explained in the following paragraphs.

The Purpose of .CO Domains

The .CO domains do not have any particular purpose, however they are now being used for all sorts of commercial purposes including but not limited to eCommerce, personal blogging, picture sites, music sites, and video sites, social sites, news sites, sports sites and any other kind of web site imaginable. Twitter is using a .co domain as a link service, however many are under the impression that this site will be used to shorten .co domains, even though it is actually intended to do much more as an overall link service for Twitter that indexes all links and collects information about them for Twitter. They are also supposed to be using the domain as a link shortener as well for Twitter development purposes. Many people wonder how Twitter got a one letter .CO domain when a normal person can only purchase a three letter domain and others are considered invalid in domain registrar databases. According to the news, Twitter paid more than a quarter million dollars for T.CO, its new .CO link service.

Shorter .CO URLs

Twitter in the aforementioned example is just one of many large web sites that are purchasing and utilizing a .co domain to shorten their domain name. Overstock.com also purchases O.CO, which is perhaps one of the most memorable web sites ever bought. Overstock’s search engine optimization specialist stated that he believes the new domain will bring in twice the amount of traffic tot he Overstock web site within the coming decade. It should be noted however that the average site owner will not be able to afford one of these one or two letter domain names, as Overstock paid more than $300,000 for O.CO.

New Brands and .CO Domains

Even though you can’t find a two or three letter .co domain, it is still very possible to purchase .co domains that have very basic keywords in them. For example, it may still be possible to purchase a 6 or 7 letter .co domain that is an actual word or existing product of some sort. Since .CO domains have just been released to the public for sale, there are many .CO domains are available that have .com counterparts. For example, there may be a web site entitled example.com. A couple of months ago you may have been able to purchase example.co, even though you are not the owner of example.com. This would give you the opportunity to capitalize on the popularity of an existing web site.

Source: webhostinggeeks.com

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What is a Domain Name?

July 17th, 2010 admin

Domains and Domain Names

Domain names are hostnames that allow us to remember websites more easily than using an IP address. So, for example, instead of having to remember 192.168.1.146 to come to this website, instead you can simply remember Domains.org.

Domain names are allowed to have letters, digits, and hyphens. No other characters may be used in a domain name. Domain names are also not case sensitive

Examples

The following example illustrates the difference between a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and a domain name:

URL: http://www.domains.org/
Domain name: domains.org

In the past, domain names and server IP address were completely interchangeable. You could type in either and find the website you were looking for. Now, however, there are far more websites than there are servers, so servers now commonly use “virtual hosting” for websites. This allows multiple websites to exist on a single IP address.

For example, the server at 192.168.1.146 could handle all of the following sites:

example1.com
example2.net
example3.org

Source: domains.org

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Website Optimization – A SEO Specialist Reveals All

July 12th, 2010 admin

Why Articles Are Not The Route To High Search Engine Rankings

Website optimization is the first step in promoting your website. Those with foresight and deeper pockets will have a SEO-savvy webmaster (such as myself) build the website that is optimized from the start.

Otherwise, a website may need a SEO-facelift later to help it be digestible to the search engines – and to make it obvious to the search engines that the keywords you are trying to be found under are truly relevant to your website. Like any specialty, performing website optimization involves skills, special tools, and a willingness to keep up with current changes in the market.

Unfortunately, hiring an SEO expert can be quite expensive. For those who want to do it themselves, here are the steps.

BOOKMARK THESE TOOLS! YOU WILL need them!

The first step in website optimization is to make sure you have well-formatted HTML. I would encourage you to use the following tool to check this: http://validator.w3.org/ Do your best to get your website as close to conformance as possible.

If you use CSS, then use a CSS validator at http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator-uri.html There is rarely an excuse for not having it validate here.

If you follow most of the suggestions for having valid HTML code your web pages will be more digestible for the search engines, as well as being much more cross-browser compliant. You should also do this after any significant edit of the web page – to ensure that it is still compliant.

The second step in website optimization is to work on the Meta tags and the title tag for each page in your site. These are in the header of your web page document and need to be tailored to attract users who type in one of a select group of keywords. If you need a tool to help generate these, use this meta tag generator tool here (http://www.spiderweblogic.com/HTML-Meta-Tag-Generator.aspx) that I built.

The Title Tag:

The title tag is, of the three, the most important for the major search engines. Don’t make this too long – normally no more than 6 words. But have your most important keywords here. Some SEO specialists advise that even the order of the text here is significant. They suggest that if you place your company name in the title, that it should be placed last so the other keywords are being considered with greater weight.

The Meta-Keywords Tag:

This is now of lesser importance than before, due to abuse by webmasters to achieve high rankings. However, it is still important and is required by many of the smaller search engines. Make sure that you don’t repeat any keyword or keyword phrase more than three times. That would be considered Spam (bad SEO tactics) by the search engines. Remember, your visitors will see the title of the web page. Make it useful to them as well.

The Meta-Description Tag:

This is of higher importance than the keywords tag. Several search engines use it when they show your listing. It needs to encourage your potential visitors to visit your website. Of course, having keywords in here is important. But keep the primary purpose in mind as you write it. Here too, you should make sure that you don’t repeat any keyword or keyword phrase more than three times.

Each page in your website needs its own tailored title, meta-description, and meta-keywords tag. These need to be focused on the keywords you are trying for. (These are the words or phrases you want to be found at when people are doing searches.) These shouldn’t normally be the same on every page. They should be customized to the content that is on that page. You should also keep your visitors in mind as you write them.

The third step is to work on your content – especially on your home page. Ideally you would have between 800 – 1200 words of text. It should have your most important keywords at the top, middle and the bottom of the text. If possible, use an “h1″ tag at the top for your title – and have your most important keyword imbedded in it. Also, have some of your keywords in a sentence or phrase that is bolded. Keep it natural for your visitors to read. If it doesn’t look natural, you will loose any visitors you have attracted.

The fourth step in website optimization is to edit your links and your images to make full use of the “title” and “alt” attributes.

Text links can have a “title” attribute. The content is to more fully describe your link. When you put your mouse over the link, the content of the “title” attribute is displayed. I would encourage you to tailor the description so that it contains at least one of your keywords – but keep it accurate – that it really does describe the link. It must make sense to the common user.

Images HTML tags can have an “alt” attribute. It is used to describe an image when you put a mouse over it. It is also used for different devices for seeing impaired. Also, it is used when the user decides not to show images with the web site. They will see this text instead. (It is the “Alternate Text” for the image.) Try to incorporate some keywords here too – but keep with the spirit of being the “alternate text” for the image.

If you are using tables, you may even include a table “summary” attribute. The purpose of this attribute is to assist for those with disabilities to understand the contents and structure of a table. Keep all summary comments within that purpose – and add keywords only where appropriate. Note that these summary attributes may cause your web page validator to spit up an error – but this is newer item that is encouraged.

The fifth step is to have a good menu system or a site map. Search engines follow links to find the different pages in your site. If your navigation is one of those JavaScript drop-down menus or Flash menus, the search engines may not find all of your pages unless you have an alternative non-JavaScript link path that they can follow. If you use the fancy JavaScript links, you should have a hard link to a site map on every page. The site map should have a real non-JavaScript list of links that the search engines can follow to map out your whole site. As a standard policy I tend to avoid the JavaScript links in the menus.

OPTIONAL:

If you haven’t chosen a domain name yet, you may strongly consider having your top keyword phrase in the domain name, with the words separated by dashes. This is an excellent idea, but not always feasible. Many companies already have a domain name selected, or prefer to use their company name as the domain name. This is a business decision left up to the customer.

THINGS NOT TO DO:

Don’t create and market mirror sites though to accomplish this trick either. Sites that are identical in content, but have a different domain name are considered SPAM (bad/taboo) by the search engines. They don’t appreciate such tricks, and the ranking of both websites will suffer for it.

Also, don’t get too crazy with stuffing keywords where they don’t belong or by repeating keywords or by having keywords in hidden layers. Search engines don’t like that and will ban your site.

SEO SOFTWARE TO BUY:

I have used SEO Studio to do website analysis during my optimization. This has been an invaluable tool for analyzing how saturated my keywords are in a particular web page. It is reasonably priced and I have been very satisfied with the performance. It is easy to see such things as keyword density relevance for the whole web page. It also is helpful in showing where the keywords are not (and can be). You will learn a lot about website optimization just by using this tool!

NOW WHAT?

After all this “Search Engine Optimization” you need to do a human review your website – is it natural/useful/helpful for the human visitor? Remember, getting website traffic is only half the game. This site needs to quickly convert them into paying customers.

Once it is “Optimized”, then you need to let the search engines know that you exist. Only after it is ready should you tell them about it. But this is a subject for another article. Do a search of different article warehouse or SEO news sources. You will find a lot of information on this.

WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION NEWS SOURCES:

Since there are new quirks in the website optimization and website promotion that come out all the time – some that apply to all search engines, and some that apply to a particular one, it is wise to keep up to date. I strongly encourage you to join a couple of relevant mailing lists!

I really like the news sources from Entireweb.com. If you submit a site through them, I would encourage you to accept their free newsletters. They have great content. http://www.entireweb.com/submit_site/

Another place to get really great articles on website optimization or promotion is http://www.SiteProNews.com They also allow you to subscribe to their articles. Do this!

If you are serious about keeping up with your website positioning, keep up with the news. You will find these resources invaluable!

Source: cyberindian.com

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Ten Places You Must Submit Your Site

July 12th, 2010 admin

Ten Places You Must Submit Your Site
By Jim Daniels

This tutorial will not promise you a top search engine position. It will also not reveal how to get your site into thousands of search engines.

Instead, you will discover the exact locations where you can submit your website for free and the few “paid submissions” that are actually worth the price.

Yes, there ARE still places where you can submit your website for free. There are actually even extremely busy search engines that have not (not yet anyway) migrated to requiring payment for listings.

Here’s a listing of these engines along with the URLs where you can add your site(s) for free:

1. Lycos
Add URL: (http://home.lycos.com/addasite.html)

2. Google
Add URL: (http://www.google.com/addurl.html)

3. HotBot
Add URL: (http://hotbot.lycos.com/addurl.asp)

4. Northern Light
Add URL: (http://www.northernlight.com/docs/regurl_help.html)

5. DMOZ – The Open Directory Project
Add URL: (http://dmoz.org/add.html)

6. Direct Hit – An Ask Jeeves Service
Add URL: (http://www.directhit.com/util/addurl.html)

7. Fast – (Formerly “All the Web”)
(http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php3)

Those seven search engines above have been responsible for sending literally thousands of visitors to my website over the past year. And they will send thousands more. And perhaps the best part is that I didn’t have to pay them a dime.

But that’s not to say that paying for a listing in a search engine is a bad thing. Sure, lots of “purists” have been bashing the search engines’ move to charging for listings. But let’s face it, they are in business to make money too. And advertising revenue is not what it used to be for many of these companies. Their CPM (cost per 1000 banner impressions) rate has dropped significantly and they need other revenue sources. So why not charge businesses for a listing?

Now as a small business owner you cannot go around and start paying every search engine that wants a hundred bucks or more just for the privilege of listing your site (or just considering it!) So you have to concentrate your budget on just the search engines that can deliver serious website traffic. Those are the engines, or networks of engines with the most traffic themselves.

After researching the field, I’ve narrowed this down to just three that are undoubtedly worth the price. They are:

8. Yahoo! Business Express
(http://help.yahoo.com/help/bizex/)

Currently $199 for non-adult sites, Yahoo! still has the busiest directory by far and you’ll get lots of traffic from a decent listing.

9. The Looksmart Network’s Express Submit
(http://submit.looksmart.com/)

Also $199, this network powers over 1/2 million websites including AltaVista, CNN, Excite, iWon, Microsoft Network, Netscape Netcenter, NetZero and WebCrawler.

10. Inktomi’s Search/Submit service
(www.networksolutions.com/catalog/searchsubmit/welcome.jhtml)

At just $30 a year for the first URL and $15 for each additional, this is a cheaper solution to the Looksmart Network submission. Inktomi powers searches through AOL, iWon, MSN and the Looksmart directory itself. The best part is that the network updates every 48 hours so you get your listing in quickly.

OK, there you have it. A quick, cut to the chase, search engine submission guide. Just be sure that before you submit your site to ANY search engine or network that your site is ready to be listed favorably. This means adding targeted keywords to your content, META tags and title as well as spell checking and browser checking your site. Once you are sure everything is set to go, visit those 10 URLs and submit your site!

Source: cyberindian.com

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8 Tips for Designing a Great Website

July 12th, 2010 admin

8 Tips for Designing a Great Website

Square buttons, round buttons, flashy buttons … will they match my shoes, my handbag or my tie? Are you stuck in a maze of buttons, headings, bullets, sub-headings and colour schemes?

STOP!!!!

Take a deep breath and read some practical tips for professional looking websites.

1. Select a colour scheme and stick to it.

If your company has a logo or preferred colours on its stationery that’s a good start. For those of you starting from scratch, choose two or three complementary colours and stick with them – don’t change colours on every page.

The most common colour schemes include:

- Red, yellow and white
- Blue and white
- Red, grey and white
- Blue, orange and white
- Yellow, grey and white.

If you’re not sure what colour scheme to choose, surf the internet and find a website that you like. You can then model your colour scheme on what already exists.

2. Use templates.

Can’t find a website you really like? Another option is to choose a template. There are many templates or pre-set designs. These come as part of your web design software (such as FrontPage) or you can check out some websites that specialise in designing templates.

Visit:

www.web4business.com.au emplates1.htm
www.newtemps.com
www.website-templates-resale-rights.com
www.123webtemplatesandmore.com

3. Provide an easy to use navigation system.

This is one of the most important issues to consider when designing a website. You need to ensure your visitors can find what they are looking for easily. Most websites either display their navigation bar on the left or at the top. And since most people are used to this type of navigation, it’s best to stick with it.

It also helps to include your navigation bar at the bottom of each page to save your visitors from having to scroll back to the top.

4. Don’t go overboard on special effects

Whilst it is ok to have one or two special effects to jazz up your website, spinning graphics and logos often distract your visitor from the content, not to mention they can take too long to download. Your visitors may click away even before your spinning logo finishes loading.
5. Backgrounds

Ensure your visitors can read the text on the background, ie. no black writing on dark blue background or yellow on white. Also be careful that your links are visible before and after being visited. The default for links in most programs is blue (before being visited) and burgundy (after being visited), so if you have a dark background, ensure your links are light.

6. External Links

It is a good idea to open links to other websites in a new window. That way your visitors can easily return to your site when they are finished browsing the external link

7. Site Map & Search Feature

If you website is more than 15 pages, it is useful to have a site map or a “Search” feature to ensure your visitors can easily find what they’re looking for.

8. Content is King

While it is important that your website looks clean and professional, it is far more important that you concentrate your efforts on the content and promotion.

If you want a professional website, things to stay away from include:

1. Flash intros, revolving globes, bevelled line separators, animated mail boxes
2. Loads of pop up or pop under boxes
3. Autoplay music. Allow your customer to play music only if they choose.
4. Hit counters of the free variety, which say “you are 27th visitor”
5. Date and time stamps, unless your website is updated daily or weekly
6. Busy backgrounds.

Don’t sweat the small stuff and get yourself focussed on what to include on the website and the best way to promote it. We will cover these topics in future articles.

This article is written by Ivana Katz whi is the owner of Websites 4 Small Business – www.web4business.com.au, a company specialising in the design and promotion of small and home-based business websites.

Source: cyberindian.com

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Do Static IP Sites Rank Higher?

July 12th, 2010 admin

This is a hotly debated topic. Some SEOs claim that sites with a static IP address rank higher while other SEOs claim that shared hosting is just fine… that it would be stupid for search engines to penalize shared  hosting since we are running out of IP addresses and so many sites are currently using name based hosting.

First, let’s define what we are talking about when we say “static IP” vs “name based” hosting. Here are some synonyms:

For “static hosting”, the following all mean the same thing: static IP, dedicated IP, http/1.0, non-shared hosting. For “dynamic hosting”, the following all mean the same thing: dynamic IP, name based hosting, http/1.1.

Let’s take a brief history of the Internet to put things more in focus. Once upon a time, every host on the Internet had a unique IP address. It is usually expressed as 4 numbers from 0-255 separated by dots. An example would be 207.44.161.131. There are billions of such IP addresses possible… however, there is a finite number. An organization called ARIN hands out IP addresses in the western hemisphere while another organization handles Europe and another Asia. Those organizations noticed several years ago that we were going to eventually run out of those IP addresses because of the proliferation of web-sites. At the time, every website had it’s own dedicated IP address that was associated with it’s domain name.

The solution? A new protocol was developed called HTTP 1.1 (to replace HTTP 1.0). The new protocol allowed more than one domain/website to share the same IP address. In fact, hundreds of websites can now share the same IP address. The new type of hosting is called “name based”, “shared IP”, “http 1.1″, etc.

Some SEOs theorize that your choice of dedicated hosting vs. shared hosting might affect your rankings. Some others claim that is ridiculous because all hosting will eventually be shared in order to preserve IP addresses.

Which are correct?

I decided to run it through our statistical analysis engine to get the facts. Here is the methodology I used to answer this question. I gathered the results of the queries naturally performed last month by myself and three associates using Yahoo and Google. I then pinged each site to get it’s IP address. I then tried to visit the site using the IP address. With shared hosting, this isn’t possible. You get some kind of generic page instead of the specific site you want. I tallied my results for each of the first eight rankings.

On the Y-axis, you will see the number of sites found that use a static IP (do not use shared/name based hosting). On the X-axis, we have rankings from 1 to 8. Here is the graph showing Yahoo and Google results:

http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com/graphs/de05.gif

First, it is interesting to note that the number of sites using shared vs. dedicated hosting is just about half and half. We expect that as time goes on, more and more sites will be using shared hosting.

The second thing to note is that there is no trend for either Yahoo or Google that would indicate any preference for either type of site. Google might show a slight preference for static IP. Yahoo might show a slight preference for shared hosting. The net effect is null. The correlations for both are very close to zero (on a scale of -100 to +100, Google’s correlation was a +35 and Yahoo’s was a -21). I generally consider anything from -35 to +35 to be statistically insignificant.

Do you use dedicated hosting in order to improve your rankings? Don’t bother. There isn’t any advantage in this factor. Often dedicated hosting is more expensive than static IP hosting… so save your money and invest it in other factors that do affect your ranking!

Notes:

1. Over 1,000 queries and over 10,000 sites were examined for this study.
2. There was no exercise to attempt to isolate different keywords. I merely took a random sampling of the queries performed by myself and three associates during the prior month.

Conclusion:

Sites using static hosting do not rank significantly higher or lower than sites using shared hosting on both Yahoo and Google.

This is merely a correlation study, so it cannot be determined from this study whether the leading search engines purposefully entertain this factor or not. The actual factors used may be far distant from the factor we studied, but the end result is that both of these search engines do, in fact, rank pages with a “window.open” command higher on average.

Source: cyberindian.com

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13 Common Mistakes That Hinder Your Search Engine Rankings

July 12th, 2010 admin

13 Common Mistakes That Hinder Your Search Engine Rankings

Your competitor has a Top 5 ranking for an important keyword phrase, but your company doesn’t crack the top 100 search results. Why? Each of the search engines uses similar, yet different algorithms comprised of changing variables that determine how a Web page ranks for keywords and phrases. There are numerous inputs into these algorithms, but some of the more important include Title tag, link popularity, inclusion of keywords in page text, and for a few, directory inclusion.

The following is Intevation’s list of 13 of the most common search engine optimization mistakes that companies make. (NOTE: To view the tags and code on a Web page, simply go to “View” and then “Source” on your Web browser.)

1. Using the Same META Tags Throughout: Perhaps the most common error we see is the use of the same META “Description” and “Keyword” tags on each page. While most search engines do not use the “Keyword” tag, the “Description” tag can help your page ranking and is used by many search engines in the results that are displayed.

2. Poorly Named Title tags: The “Title” tag is perhaps the most important element of each page of your site. Yet it is an after thought to most Web designers and Webmasters. Look at the title of most “About Us” pages and you’ll usually see something like “About Company X.” Very few people search using a phrase such as “about company X.” Instead, use a relevant message from the page for the Title tag, such as “Integrated Web services for professional services firms,” and optimize for an important and popular search phrase.

3. Lack of Relevant Text: Most search engines look for a match between the keyword phrase being searched and the text on your site. They also tend to place a higher priority on the text and keywords located higher on the page. Make sure you have a theme to each page and optimize the Title tag and page content to reinforce each other.

4. Putting All/Most of the Text in Images: Most Web designers develop sites to look good, but with little to no understanding of how search engines crawl Web sites. An extremely common mistake is to have all or a lot of text on a page in a graphic image. It might look great, but a search engine crawler can’t read it. Make sure you supplement any “text in images” with enough page text.

5. Lack of META Tags: Not including any META tags won’t really hurt you too much on search engines such as Google, but will reduce your ranking on many other search engines. As mentioned above, inclusion of the Description tag is fairly important – while the Keyword tag is of little importance.

6. Not Using Each Page of the Site: Whether your site is 10 or 100 pages, every page of your Web site is a potential search engine entry point. Have a plan for every page and optimize each one for specific keyword phrases.

7. Not Submitting Your URL to Search Engines and Directories: Most of the search engines will find your Web site if it is linked to other sites within its database. But with no or few sites linked to yours, chances are you won’t be crawled unless you submit your URL directly to the site. Most search engines have a “Suggest a URL” link on their home page. Additionally, make sure you are listed in the Open Directory Project (ODP) and consider paid inclusion directories such as Yahoo and LookSmart.

8. Few Links From Other Sites: Most companies spend minimal time and resources on gaining links from other sites, yet it is one of the most important elements in many search engine algorithms, including Google. Make sure your company is listed on all the major directories, industry-specific directories and portal sites, your partners and clients as appropriate, and other sites. Secondly, expand the content on your site, including the development of “resources information,” and seek reciprocal links from other sites.

9. Too Much Focus on the Keywords Meta Tag: Check out the Keyword Meta Tag on most Web site pages and you’ll see a long list of words and phrases, including the name of the company CEO, product names, etc. The problem: Almost all of the search engines actually don’t use this tag, but they do look at the keywords in your Title tag and page content, and a few look at the Description Meta tag.

10. Lack of ALT Tags: The ALT tag is used to describe the contents of an image on your Web page – and is what you see if the graphics are switched off in the browser or the image doesn’t load/or loads slowly. Search engine crawlers read the tag as text and so when used correctly with appropriate keywords (related to the image of course), this tag could improve your ranking a few places or pages.

11. Lack of Text Links on Home Page: Make sure you include a number of text links (that takes visitors to various pages within your site) on your home page. Why? Most of the search engines will crawl your home page first, and then look for text links further into the site.

12. Low/High Keyword Density: While the use of keyword density in the search engine algorithms seems to be changing and waning in importance, it should not be ignored. Keyword density that is too low suggests that the page may not be as relevant as another, yet too high and your page is considered SPAM by most and will be penalized in the ranking.

13. Use of JavaScript, Flash and Frames: Though it varies by search engine, the use of Frames, Flash and too much JavaScript can cause problems with crawlers – relegating your pages to the end of the line. All is not lost, however, there are a number of approaches that can be deployed that will reduce or eliminate these problems.

Source: cyberindian.com

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Unlimited Wealth Creation Through Reseller Hosting

July 12th, 2010 admin

Web hosting can be an exciting business start up for aspiring entrepreneurs. All you have to do to set up your business is become a hosting reseller, i.e., provide hosting facilities to website owners. Here as a business owner, you are buying space from a big hosting company, and redistributing the hosting space to other website owners.

Resellers are nothing but entrepreneurs acting as middlemen, offering you hosting services by leasing time and space from another Web host’s server rather than owning their own. Most of the times, the quality of services offered by resellers are so good that consumers do not even have the idea that they are dealing with resellers who do not have servers of their own. Resellers, since they can pick and choose their servers, are basically in a position to provide the customers with the best of services.

Reseller hosting business can be quite a profit making venture once you understand the figures and profit margins involved. Let us go through them. One can buy around 1000 MB space from a major web host at a cost of $25 per month. This 1000 MB space that you now own can in turn be redistributed to site owners who need space for uploading their site. Here you can give about 25 MB space for around $5 per month. Which means your monthly income comes to around $200 when you sell 40 hosting packages. Want more. some hosts allow you to oversell the space and do not charge you extra unless the actual usage of your account exceeds 1000MB. It is seen that a typical user uses less than half of the allotted web space. which means you can double or even triple sell your quota and make unlimited wealth.

And mind well, this income is residual income. It will keep coming to you month after month, year after year. You do the work once. and get paid for it over and over. All you are doing is buying space from a major web hosting company and becoming a reseller host. Your efforts are focused towards selling hosting space and the rest is handled by your web host. Some of them even handle customer service to your customers for a nominal fee. which makes it even easier for you.

If this is not enough. you can earn additional residual incomes by adding recruiting more resellers through you. By doing this you will earn regular commissions on their monthly sales. isn’t this smart business. The profit margins in the business of reseller hosting is quite good and you can start on this exciting business venture even if you do not have the required expertise and access to funds for setting up the required infrastructure. Strange as it might sound, there are also times where a reseller can also be more scalable than a typical hosting firm. A true Web host is limited by its hardware; if a client suddenly requires an upgrade the host is not prepared for, the only way the host will be able to satisfy the customer is by upgrading its hardware – expensive and time consuming for both sides. The reseller host, however, can simply choose to locate with a different Web host that will better suit the customer’s needs.

Happy Wealth Creation!!!

Source: cyberindian.com

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